by Seth King
“That I wanted to suck your dick, to be totally honest,” he answers. “And then submit myself to a mental health center for testing.”
“I know what you mean,” I breathe.
“And what’d you think?”
“The exact same thing. The exact same thing.”
We both laugh.
“What are you thinking about now?” I ask.
“The future.”
“Okay?”
“Well, you know, I’m sure you’re getting a share of this house when it’s sold, and real estate in this area has exploded lately...”
I take a breath. “And?”
“And I’m not ready for this to end yet. Just – just imagine us together. Imagine what we could be, if we let ourselves. I’ve been thinking…”
“Thinking? Wh – what do you mean?”
“You know what I mean. Consider it, Eliot. Consider me. You could move to Atlanta, at least for a summer. I’ve got a huge apartment that looks down on the park. There’s a perfect little brunch spot on the first floor of my building, with waffles that’ll knock your face off. We could sleep in every day, make love, drink coffee, go shopping at Lenox Mall, drink good wine at night. I have the money. Just hang with me for a while. Let’s get to know each other, maybe?”
“Robert…I want to explore that very badly. Very, very badly. But…imagine an old friend sees us out on a date. One who knows I’m your…who knows about my mom. What do you think will go through their head?”
“Are you really there? Already? Haven’t you ever taken a risk in your life?”
“Robert, obviously I want you. I’m not saying I don’t. I’m just worried about how this will translate into the real world. Real life. This place is paradise. It isn’t real. We have to go out there, and…and…”
“And love each other? What’s so complicated about that?”
At the core of it, nothing is complicated.
“Ugh, why do you have to be so sensible?” I ask. “Can’t you just let me be crazy for a second?”
I pull him into me and just breathe into his hair, letting his spirit fill me with light. In the soft moonlight, he looks a good decade younger than he did last night in the restaurant. I feel a twinge of affection deep in my chest. What if I woke up to this every morning? Would I want that? Would I be content with that?
Obviously. But would I be able to live with the wreckage we would possibly leave behind?
“When you cut me off,” I say in a lower voice, “I thought you were gone for good.”
“That would never happen.”
“How did you stay away?”
“I was never away. All I thought about was you. You’re with me, even when you’re not with me.”
“God, this is crazy,” I say.
“I know it is. That’s why I trust it. I don’t care who you are, or what your position is. I care for you very much.”
“We’re going to need to talk about something,” I say, very carefully. “I’m never going to put it out of my head if we don’t.”
“Yes?”
I swallow hard. “What do you remember of me? Like, back then…”
He cringes. “Not much, and I’m being totally honest.”
“Why?”
“Imagine how you were the year before you came out.”
“A mess,” I say.
“Exactly. Not to be rude, but…you weren’t on my radar. I was just trying to manage an impossible situation. So meeting you here was like meeting someone for the first time.”
“Okay. Good.”
He laughs.
“What is it?” I ask.
“Actually, I do remember something about you – you had a Kelly Clarkson poster in the room you kept. I remember you said it was because you thought she was ‘so hot,’ but you weren’t really fooling anyone…”
I can’t help but turn red. “Ah, yes, the classic move of a gay teen – worship a female pop star, but pretend it’s all out of lust.”
“Don’t worry, I didn’t explain to your mom.”
“God,” I say, sighing. “What…what was it like being married to her, anyway? Can I ask that?”
“Sure. Um. It was…a handful, but overall, a pleasure. She can be very emotionally…”
“Needy, you can say it.”
“Yes, but I require a great deal of affection, too. I didn’t mind that. Really, she was exactly what I needed at that moment in time – she was just a woman. But she served as a distraction, a life boat, when I needed it the most. I’ll never forget what she told me the day I moved out.”
“What was that?”
“That I would always have a home with her, and if I ever fell on my face, I could come back for help and a hug. And then she kicked my car as I drove away, and called me a heartless narcissist.”
“Sounds like Mary Kate Prince,” I laugh.
“Yep. God. Besides Rick, we probably know her better than any two living people on the planet.”
“That’s the last thing,” I say. “If we…if I…Robert, if we break my mom’s heart, I will never get over it. What do you, deep down, think she would say?”
“I…I think you’d be fine, because she would blame me.”
“You don’t know her that well, then. She knows who I am, and how I am. I’ve never done anything I didn’t want to do, ten thousand percent. She’ll blame both of us.”
“Or maybe she doesn’t have to know?”
“Huh?”
“Say…you decide to move to Atlanta. Say you tell her you’re crashing with friends, but you’re really crashing in my bed. Say we get away with it. It can happen. I just know I can’t lose you.”
“I already know I don’t want to lose you, either. We just have to present this to my mom in a way that will let her down easy, and also prevent her from killing us both.” I take a breath. “Let’s look at it from her eyes. Do you think she loves you?”
He shifts a little. “No, and I mean that. I think she loves Rick.”
“Do you think she would be…jealous?”
“No! Not in a romantic sense. I know she would be weirded out, though. She will just have to…I don’t know, somehow learn to get over it.”
“Do you think she ever will?”
“I don’t know,” he says soon. “But I want to see. I can’t turn back now. You are one of the greatest things I have found, Eliot. I’ll look back on this trip as one of the best times I ever had in my life. No matter what, thank you.”
I swallow and try to find the words. “I…I feel the same way. I honestly feel the same way. That boat ride, the passion between us, our talks in the woods…I never expected this. You fell out of the sky, but it’s also like you were here all along.”
He laughs at nothing.
“What could possibly be funny, you freak?” I ask.
“Oh, it’s just…technically I didn’t fall from nowhere. I fell out of a marriage with your mother. And now I’m here.”
I jab him in the ribs. “You’re never going to stop with those jokes, are you?”
“No. I have to laugh at it. God knows everyone else will.”
I lean against his side. “I am glad you came here, Robert Glazer.”
“I am glad I did, too, Halvard Eliot Prince.”
“Don’t ever say that name again.”
“You got it.”
I lay against him, and I feel that his dick is hard.
“Fuck,” he moans. “Touching you, being around you, just does this. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry.”
“And the fact that you’re so hot…it turns me on.”
“I was just thinking about that,” I tell him. “I feel the same thing.”
He creeps his hand down my chest, towards my cock, which is quickly hardening. “I mean, I would even be turned on by us, if I saw us somewhere. We look good together. Very good. The fact that I’m lucky enough to get to be the one who pleases you, I mean, it’s too much…”
Within seconds
my cock is down his throat. It happens that quickly, and it feels so natural. He really does enjoy my body, and you can tell – his every move and noise is full of enthusiasm.
He takes me deeper. The last week flashes in my eyes, and I feel so grateful. I’ve never felt so close to someone, mentally and physically and everything else. I could do this every day with him and never get sick of it. And that’s when my body starts to go numb and I realize I’m going to blow soon, for the first time in my life – I’ve never had an orgasm from a blow job before. But he is sloppy and wet and good, and I can’t take any more.
“Robert,” I sigh as he sucks me, caressing his dark hair. “Robert…”
“Mhmm?” he breathes as he takes me again. I clutch his head and lean back as the orgasm comes.
“Robert…Robert…Robert…” I groan as the waves hit me. And then I’m squirting into his mouth, and as the orgasm really hits, I accidentally say something that takes all the air out of my lungs: “RobertIloveyou.”
Robert Glazer
Eliot mumbles the most surprising sentence I’ve ever heard, and before I can really process what he’s said, he leans into me and comes inside my mouth. I swallow down every bit of him, something I’ve only done a few times before – but he tastes so delicious, I love every second of it.
When he stills, he pulls away and backs up a few feet.
That’s when it really hits me. Eliot just told me he loves me.
He just lays there as I await a reaction, an acknowledgement, anything.
“Eliot,” I finally breathe. “Was that…did you…did you really…mean that?”
But he won’t make eye contact. Why would he be embarrassed of saying that?
“I can’t…I won’t…”
“I love you, too,” I say before I can stop myself. “I think I’ve accidentally fallen in love with you. I know this makes no sense, and I know it’s crazy, but…you make the world stop. You took me from LCD to IMAX, and I don’t know how to come back from this. I love you. I do.”
For one magical moment, our eyes meet. Our lips pull together into the best kiss I have experienced, and then he moans.
Then a feeling hits me. If we’re moving forward like this, there’s something he needs to know. Suddenly I can’t keep it in anymore. I can’t lie to him.
“God,” I begin, “there’s something else I want to tell you, need to tell you, but I know it’s not my place…”
“What? Tell me,” he says. I go tense against him.
“Okay. Um. Has…has your mom talked to you this week? About…anything?”
“No. I’ve been avoiding the hell out of her.”
“Well…she’s avoiding you, too.”
“Why?”
“Do you really want to know?”
“You already started it.”
“Okay. Eliot, um…the night she cornered me in the bathroom, she…she told me she’s…”
“What? Say it.”
“She told me she’s divorcing your stepdad, and she’s terrified of telling you.”
I wait. He just stares at me, though.
“Well? Are you upset?” I ask.
“Uh…no. Not really.”
“You’re not?”
“So that’s been her issue this whole time? Jesus. I already knew that.”
“You did?” I ask.
“Robert, I’m young, not blind. They’re barely sharing a life anymore. She hasn’t said anything, no, but I knew this was coming. I was just waiting for her to tell me. I mean, it’s sad, sure, but I have my own relationship with Rick. I’ll be fine. But they can’t stand each other. They shouldn’t waste their middle ages with each other because of me.”
I just stare at the sky. Then, for the craziest reason, I let out a nervous laugh. “God, she thought you would be so upset…she’ll be so relieved…”
“And I’m relieved that was the thing making her act so weird,” he says. “I thought…well, you know what I thought. And…wait, that’s why you stopped talking to me that time?”
“Kind of. Yeah. I just…I didn’t know what to do. It really threw me.”
“At least it was nothing I did.”
I laugh as my head spins. It feels like I am dreaming in real life. Eliot loves me. Eliot Prince really loves me…
“I have something else to say,” I tell him after a short pause. “I’ve been thinking, and…I want your Sundays.”
“What?”
“Most people want someone’s Friday nights,” I begin. “They want their Saturday evenings. Most people want your highlight reel, the parts where you pretend to be who you pretend to be when you think people are looking. But I want your deep cuts, Eliot. I want to be there for all of it, the whole thing, and then some. If you let me in, I’ll never leave. I want to do this, Eliot.”
For a long time he doesn’t say anything.
“God,” he manages soon. “Why do you have to be so wonderful?”
“Because you are. And it makes me want to rise to your level. I love getting to love you.”
“Shut up.”
And then we do the most dangerous and most beautiful thing: we fall asleep together under a comforter of Carolina stars.
Eliot Prince
I’m in a funeral home in my dream, surrounded by the types of musty old ladies who always descend when someone dies. I can’t see who’s dead, I just keep glancing up and then looking away because I’m afraid. But finally the line moves, and I walk up and look into it. Sure enough, Robert is in the casket, looking stuff and embalmed and alien.
“Poor Eliot,” Oz says from a few feet away, but close enough to hear me. “He didn’t listen, and now he just gave the prime of his life to a guy who had one foot in the grave all along…I knew he had daddy issues…”
The nightmare jolts me awake. I look up and see something even stranger: Gracie, my cousin, looking down at me. I’m on the dock with Robert, and it’s dawn. Lost in the obliviousness of the moment between sleep and consciousness, I sort of smile up at her. What in the world is going on?
Oh, wait – it’s not a dream. It’s real. I’m awake, and Gracie found us together on the dock.
I jump back, making Robert stir. But Gracie just shakes her head.
“You don’t have to do that. Your mom knows.”
“Wh – what? She knows what?” I ask.
Robert opens his eyes and looks up at her, then looks over at me in horror as she responds. But I’m not that surprised. That’s why I had stress nightmares – my mom and I have always been strangely linked, and I must’ve known she was upset. I picked up on it.
“Ummm,” Gracie says in her valley girl lilt, “apparently your ex-boyfriend texted your mom and told her a bunch of stuff. I heard her fighting with my mom. My room is next to hers, and they woke me up.”
My face goes numb. I don’t know what to think. I don’t know what to say. Nothing makes sense anymore.
“What did she say?” Robert asks in a voice calmer than I could ever manage. He scoots away, but Gracie just shrugs at him. She doesn’t have a dog in this fight.
“She said she wasn’t surprised, and on some level she already knew. That’s when it got too crazy to understand. And don’t try to hide it now,” she says. “I knew before, and I didn’t really care that much.”
“You knew?”
“I was adopted from Cambodia,” she says. “Not Mars. Anyone would’ve known.”
“What do we do now?” I ask, and she just shrugs.
“I don’t know. But honestly I’d prepare for World War Three, if I were you guys.”
And then she turns on her heel, leaving us totally alone.
Robert Glazer
Eliot jumps away from me, literally jumps, and runs up the lawn and into the house. For a long moment I just stare straight ahead, still in disbelief. I have to be asleep – this can’t be happening. It’s an illusion. I’m still sleeping next to Eliot, we’re going to wake up soon, and then go home and start our future together.
/> I slap my forearm. I leave a whitish welt, and that’s when it really hits me: it really happened. Mary Kate knows. And Eliot is gone.
With my face down, I power-walk up the hill and into my room, desperate not to see anyone. But in my room, I don’t know what to do, either. She really knows, Mary Kate really knows – is she going to tell everyone? Has she already? Or is she going to just kill me? And I came here for the funeral. How could I leave before Sara’s ashes are spread? Would anyone want me there? Surely they wouldn’t, if they find out what I’ve done. What we did together. What in the world should I do?
I glance at my phone and see a text from last night that I never opened, one from Eliot saying simply, ok. Oh, Eliot. I really did love him. I did. I do. I can say that now. I know it’s crazy, but it’s true. And we fucked it all up. I’ll never see him again after Mary Kate Prince is done with me. What have we done?
I catch my reflection in the mirror and see the touch of grey in my hair. I think of my age, and how at this point in my life I probably have more yesterdays than tomorrows.
Fuck, I really thought I had something here. Against all logic and common sense and everything else, I thought I’d found something. And now it’s gone.
My face folds in on itself, and tears burn my eyes. I can’t face myself, and I can’t look at this. I am an adult man, watching myself dissolve into tears like a toddler. The shame just makes it worse, the feeling that I should be stronger. So that all compounds on itself to make the tears harder, and soon I am sobbing alone in my room.
After all my running, I thought I was coming home. But I wasn’t. It was just another dead end. Just another disappointment. Just another letdown, another mistake…
When I have no more tears to shed, I barricade myself under my comforter – which smells of Eliot – and dry-heave myself to sleep.
~
I wake again at ten, disoriented and empty. The service is soon. Before everyone leaves, we’re having a small ceremony and pouring Sara’s ashes into her beloved lake.
I sit up and rub my head. I feel hungover in a way that has nothing to do with alcohol. But for some reason I want to stay. I want to see this through. I thought I’d be gone by now, but I can’t leave – not yet. This is the whole reason I came. I can’t back out now.